Jeff and I LOVE to eat out and cook beautiful, organic meals, but we’re budget conscious since moving to New York. With that in mind, we plan all of our meals for the week allowing ourselves to indulge on take out or restaurants a few times over the weekend and we save our gourmet stuff for parties. Our groceries always seem to come out at about 75 dollars for the week…that’s only around $2.50 a meal! I thought I’d share our list and recipes each week just in case you want to eat for less too, but here are a few disclaimers you ought to know before copying it all down:

1. Jeff hates leftovers, but I hate waste and making something different every night for dinner….SO…every week I have to come up with something that IS leftovers but doesn’t taste like it. Also, I like to only buy what we will eat for the week and to start with a mostly empty fridge every Sunday.

2. We eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 days and then change it the next week. If you can’t stand this thought, this is probably not for you! :-)

3. Our list only includes things we don’t already have, so your list might be a little more money if you don’t have some of the ingredients in the recipes. Some weeks, we go over 75 dollars because we’ve run out of olive oil or salt or coffee, etc.

4. As much as I like the idea of going to farmer’s markets or buying a share of vegetables from a local farm, this is not that kind of list. It is preplanned so we don’t waste food or money or time. For example, we shop at Trader Joe’s, not Whole Foods. We shop at Food Bazaar, not the local organic market…that’s just how we roll.